Shaman 101: 5.0.4 Edition

Fair Warning; This thread will be un-stickied on October 9th. I'm leaving it up for 2 weeks after the MoP launch, so any returning Shaman can get a quick at-a-glance update info, but it won't serve much purpose past that point.

5.0.4 is looming in a few days, and I thought it was time to review the major changes coming for the Shaman class. We'll review class-wide changes first, and then some spec-specific details afterwards.

First, the fundamentals;

Shaman Changes in 5.0.4

New Talents system (see below for details)

New Glyphs system (see below for details)

Intellect no longer increases mana, instead mana is determined solely by character level. This has major implications mostly to Restoration.

Guardians such as the Elemental Totems and Feral Spirits all now dynamically adjust stats with the caster, and have improved AI.

Wind Shear has been increased to a 12s cooldown, with a 3s lockout, as part of a game-wide increase in interrupt CDs.

Cleanse Spirit now cleanses all Curse effects, but has an 8 second cooldown, as part of the game-wide Dispel overhaul. Bosses with spam Dispel mechanics such as Sinestra and Spine of Deathwing have had their mechanics tweaked to account for this change.

Lava Surge - Now not only resets Lava Burst, but also makes the next cast instant.

Elemental Mastery is no longer an Elemental cooldown, but a new talent. This leaves Elemental without a personal DPS cooldown (other than the Fire Elemental Totem summon) until we can hit level 87 and gain Ascendance, though you can take the EM talent if you so wish.

Enhancement-specific:

Feral Spirits have been significantly buffed.

Spirit Walk has been removed from Feral Spirits and made into an Enhancement-specific sprint ability.

The new mana pools will limit healer performance somewhat, and reduce the strength of mana regen overall.

Telluric Currents is now a Glyph with less of an effect than the talent had during 4.3.

Talents:

The talent system is being overhauled. No longer do you receive 41 talent points to select various static buffs and the occasional new ability, instead those have been added to each spec's basic abilities, and the new talent system will provide you with a new, tiered, class-wide system. Each tier provides you one talent point that must be spent in that tier, between one of three talent choices. There will be an additional tier and talent point for level 90, however these won't come into play until the MoP release on September 25th. Remember; this does not mean you're losing all your talents; the critical talents for each spec have, for the most part, been turned into class or spec abilities, or rolled into the abilities by default.

That's what the talent selection screen will look like when you log in. As you can see, the level 90 talents are there, but greyed out, and you have 5 points unspent.

Briefly, here is what each talent allows you to do. Follow the link or see the tooltip for the exact details;

Ancestral Guidance - Causes your healing/DPS to heal up to 3 nearby players for 40% of the damage/healing done.

Conductivity - Causes damage or healing done to targets within your Healing Rain to AoE heal those standing in the Healing Rain.

Precisely which talent you'll want to pick can be changed on a per-fight basis, and in many cases should be. Highly mobile fights where everyone is spread out, such as Warmaster Blackhorn, would not be ideal for Conductivity, for instance, making one of the other choices in that tier a likely better choice for that fight.

​Glyphs
Prime Glyphs have been removed. Many Primes, which were static boosts, were deliberately changed to be Majors; this change under most circumstances has resulted in a reduction in power, to be more in-line with the intended value of a Major glyph. This list is complete; all of our available glyphs are listed herein.You may still choose three Major glyphs and three Minor glyphs from the following lists.

Glyph of Totemic Encirclement. When you cast a totem spell, you also place unempowered totems for any elements that are not currently active. These totems have 5 health and produce no other effects.

Rotation

For the most part, rotation for both Elemental and Enhancement remain relatively similar to their 4.3 versions. Remember to include Stormlash Totem for raid DPS, however. More specifics on exact changes will be forthcoming once 5.0.4 actually hits and we can run some more concrete simulations.

Stats

For the most part, statistics are not changing a great deal. However, there are two changes that bear mentioning;

Hit Rating and Expertise

In 4.3, Hit Rating and Expertise are separate stats that do not overlap, and this has caused Enhancement in particular to need a great deal of both Hit Rating (to reach the 17% spell hit cap) and Expertise (to remove Dodges from the hit table). In 5.0.4, these stats have been made more similar, and with some degree of overlap. Casters now need 15% spell hit to hit boss-level creatures, rather than 17%. Melee now need 7.5% hit rating to cap special attacks, and 7.5% expertise to remove Dodges from the hit table. Expertise also provides spell hit.

For Enhancement in particular, this is a boon; rather than having to gear for both caps, gearing for 7.5% Hit Rating and 7.5% Expertise will also provide them 15% spell hit, capping them for spell attacks. Be prepared to Reforge your gear once the patch hits!

PvP Resilience and PvP Power

These stats are replacing Resilience and Spell Penetration, respectively, on PvP gear. The intent is to make PvP gear both more useful in PvP than PvE gear, as well as reducing the barrier to entry for new players moving from either PvP or PvE to the other form of gameplay. All players will have a basic amount of PvP Resilience built into their character baseline, 30% as of this writing, with the gear providing more damage reduction from players. PvP Resilience will reduce the damage taken from other players, while PvP Power will increase the damage and healing you deal to other players. PvP gear will also have a reduced item level compared to PvE gear of that same period, though PvP Power and PvP Resilience will not be part of that itemization value. The goal is that PvP gear will be undesirable in PvE because of the lower item level and that PvP Power and Resilience have no effect in PvE content, while PvE gear will be undesirable in PvP as the comparable PvP gear will be better once you include the PvP Power and Resilience stats they get for "free". However, each type of gear will be usable in the other's content if one does not yet have appropriate gear; PvE gear has the higher item level and PvP gear has a full complement of stats without itemization being lost to Resilience, as it currently does.

Gems and Enchants:

For the most part, there are no changes in this regard worth speaking of until Mists of Pandaria launches.

This list is not intended to be absolutely thorough on every little change, but if there's a Shaman-relevant change you feel was overlooked, please PM me so that it can get included. Please ensure it's Shaman-specific; the purpose of this post is not to cover any of the wider changes to the game, like profession changes or the like.

I'm not even a shaman (I play Holy Paladin as main), but I just wanted to reply and say that it's pretty awesome that you took the time to write this up to cover all the changes for people who needed a little summary of things to look out for. /cheers

Actually, looks like they made it class-wide at some point; the level 85 I made on the beta to grab the screenshots with the grayed-out level 90 stuff is in Enhance and it's in their spellbook, too. Not sure when that slipped through, but I've amended the post in any case.

other then that, I'm sure most will find this sum up most helpful, thanks!

Haste's value has a lot to do with Fire Elemental, Ascendance and lvl 90 talents. For UF, for instance, Mastery still outperforms Haste.

I'd like to see some reasons behind the statement being made in that post. Mastery has a better rating conversion and is a flat damage increase to pretty much anything, unlike haste.

Cairne wanted to thank him again, to offer encouragement, praise for a task so successfully completed. For being able to bear such burdens. But Saurfang was an orc, not a blood elf, and lavish compliments and effusion would not be welcomed or wanted.

No. In MoP, you need Tome of the Clear Mind; these can be bought from inscription supply vendors, just as dust of disappearance is now on live. Also, if you're fortunate enough to own a Tundra Mammoth, they will have it on them.

No. In MoP, you need Tome of the Clear Mind; these can be bought from inscription supply vendors, just as dust of disappearance is now on live. Also, if you're fortunate enough to own a Tundra Mammoth, they will have it on them.

FWIW, the screenshots up there were taken on a level 85, on the beta, yesterday. Tomes of Clear Mind appear to only affect glyphs at level 86 or higher. While that's clearly how things will be for MoP this FAQ is meant to get us through the 5.0.4 lump until we get closer to MoP when the MoP-focused FAQs for each spec will appear.

I misinterpreted this in the beginning I think. It is not, I assume that mana regen is weaker, as in less important, but it is that it is weaker, as in you get less of it?
Because I guess that smaller mana pools will lead to regen becoming more important, and thus make spirit a stronger stat relatively to other stats.

I misinterpreted this in the beginning I think. It is not, I assume that mana regen is weaker, as in less important, but it is that it is weaker, as in you get less of it?
Because I guess that smaller mana pools will lead to regen becoming more important, and thus make spirit a stronger stat relatively to other stats.

spirit will be important yes. but percentage based regen stays the same as you mana pool is fixed. at least this is my conclusion.

I misinterpreted this in the beginning I think. It is not, I assume that mana regen is weaker, as in less important, but it is that it is weaker, as in you get less of it?
Because I guess that smaller mana pools will lead to regen becoming more important, and thus make spirit a stronger stat relatively to other stats.

It means weaker as in you get less regen, making mana (and thus regen itself) more important in the long run. This is deliberate, and it's game-wide, so it's not like it's nerfing Resto specifically.

Originally Posted by chrth

Since Elemental no longer needs to have a Fire Totem out for the 10% buff, do we no longer worry about Searing Totem, or does it do enough damage to justify the mana/GCD?

That's where you look at damage-per-cast-time, meaning you need to consider the damage ST does over its entire duration. It easily qualifies as a useful drop under that measure, but because you're dropping it solely for the damage, maintaining 100% uptime won't be the absolutely critical thing it currently is; letting it fall off for a moment while you finish a better cast will be the right way to go.

For the most part, rotation for both Elemental and Enhancement remain relatively similar to their 4.3 versions. Remember to include Stormlash Totem for raid DPS, however. More specifics on exact changes will be forthcoming once 5.0.4 actually hits and we can run some more concrete simulations.

Endus, do you plan on updating the 4.3 Elemental sticky post with this info, or creating a new post? Just wondering what I should look for.